I learned something about myself today. I have slowly over the course of 8 years of motherhood began to acquire the fine art of mom magic. It must've happenend so gradually, I didn't even realize my own strength until I actually stopped for a minute and thought about what I was doing - how I use this new super power I possess . It's crazy. As a child and teenager, I knew my mom was extra special (hi mom!). She knew stuff. She knew everything. I'm not talking about history, math, and English stuff, although she is very, very smart. The kind of stuff I'm referring to is like knowing what's going on, who's doing what, what the trick is to making every appliance in the house work just right, and pretty much how to do just about anything and everything. She was magic. How does one little mom who's supposedly so busy raising her 6 kids still manage to know everything?! Like the time I stole my brother Scott's M&Ms out of his Easter basket. I swear I was so sneaky. There's no way anyone could have known. But a mom? Yeah, she knew. Mom knew everything. I don't think that I've quite reached her level yet - she has a few years on me.

But...I'm getting there.

Earlier this evening I felt just a tad of that mysterious magic coming from me.

I was rocking Lily in the front room. The rest of the family was back in the family room and kitchen. Everyone was doing their own thing. I couldn't see any one. I was sort of dozing off because that's what I do when I sit for more than one minute. I "woke up" suddenly, not really for any obvious reason. As I sat there for about another 10 seconds I realized my rest time had to be over. I knew a LOT of stuff. Stuff that was happening all over the house, but I hadn't moved from that rocking chair. Stuff was amuck and I knew it.

I knew Claire had a permanent marker

I knew Ty needed to go to the bathroom...bad, but he was insisting on holding it.

I knew someone had left the back door open.

AND

I knew the toilet handle needed to be jiggled because it was still running, and the bathroom is three rooms away. Too far to hear it, especially in my sleep.

*Side note - every house I've lived in since childhood on up has had a toilet like this. Is there a more permanent solution than jiggling the handle? Like a way to actually fix it? Any plumbers reading my blog?*

So before I got up to go restore order to my world I had to sit there and think about how I had come to know all this. In my ponderings I discovered the secret to mom magic. You may be surprised to know that anyone can learn it. Yes, it is a learned art, but it takes years of dedicated training and a highly motivated seeker... like a mom who wants to always be sure to retrieve the permanent marker before the lid is removed by a three year-old.

The magic of mom is all about using your senses. Using all of them all of the time. Our homes are our own little world that we can learn to be masters over. It makes perfect sense. When a matronly master becomes so in tune with her world, nothing will escape her - almost like magic. All will be amazed.

Obviously sight is a critical sense. I rely on it to follow the traces of a chocolate chip theif, to know when some little person got into the markers and left pictures on the wall, and to move the roller skates off of the stairs in order to avoid a trip to the ER. So, what if mom is sitting on the couch with a migraine with her eyes closed because the light hurts too much to keep them open? Well then, her ears work double time. She can hear the bag of chocolate chips being opened, she takes note of the conversation about how fun markers can be when one is not using paper, and she immediately recognizes the thud of the roller skates landing on the stairs and then hears the culprit scamper off. What if mom also has ear plugs in because the neighbors are playing their music too loud AND she's wearing a mask to keep the light out? That's obvious. She's still got a nose. And luckily for moms on the job, things like permanent markers, nail polish, bleach, and chocolate were all given strong smells to help make mothering just a little bit easier. So what if, poor mom with the eye mask and the ear plugs, also has a cold so her nose is stuffy and she can't smell anything? In that case, her sense of touch is enhanced by 500% so that slight changes in air currents do not go unnoticed. This explains why I always wake up when one of the kids comes and silently stands by our bed in the middle of the night. I feel their presence. A mother must be completely at one with her surroundings to master this sense. I'm sure I still have much to learn. And last, and perhaps the most critical sense for the success of a mother is taste. Any mom knows that at the end of a long and tiring day, if she can depend on that bowl of ice cream or big fat piece of chocolate cake, or whatever her pick me up food may be, then all of her other senses will be refueled for another day on the job. Taste is the mother sense of all senses. It's what ties them all together into a single, solid, indestructible force. Good eating yields effective mothering.